ECG workers unconvinced about keeping their jobs

Some staff of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) remain unconvinced that their jobs remain secure as the process to choose a concessionaire moves on.

Under the Millennium Challenge Compact II, the focus is the ECG financial and turnaround project to improve the efficiency of the power distributor.

The Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) is going through a list of companies that have bid for the project. There has been disquiet among some ECG staff about the path government seeks to take to make ECG more efficient.

At the recent May Day celebration, the President assured the workers their jobs remain secure saying that the power provider will not be privatised.

But some of the ECG workers remain unconvinced. There was a major meeting Tuesday, of the staff to review their options as the deadline for announcing who gets the concessionaire job draws near.

Deputy General Secretary of the Public Utilities Workers Union, Michael Nyantekyi questions why government will not do for ECG now what it is prepared to do for a concessionaire if they come on board.

He said it is not the issue of whether they doubt what the president said during the May Day celebration, but the current arrangement as it stands has a lot of gaps considering the President said no one will lose their job.

However, Mr. Nyantekyi said, “the cabinent decision is that the concessionaire should refrain from declaring any staff redundancy within the first five years. So the issue is what happens after the first five years?”

They further want to know what the other details to protect workers interest are although he said they met with the sector minister as well MiDA both of whom have failed to give them the details they are requesting for.

“MiDA said the details will be looked at when the draft request for proposals are prepared,” yet Mr. Nyantekyi claims this has already been issued out and is going through the process without those guarantees the Union was expecting to see that no staff will be laid off.

The Deputy General Secretary of the Public Utilities Workers Union said it begs the question for the whole issue to be reduced to staff being laid off and redundancy.

According to him, the study conducted by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which is the consultancy advising MiDA, they stated that the ECG is not overstaffed so the redundancy argument is moot.